The Self-Esteem Myth

Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth, in Scientific American, explores the self-esteem issue in academia:

Boosting people's sense of self-worth has become a national preoccupation. Yet surprisingly, researchshows that such efforts are of little value in fostering academic progress or preventing undesirable behavior

Like the old joke goes, "Schools today are turning out kids that can't even read, but they really feel good about themselves," or something like that. The point being that so much has been made about self-esteem in primary education that substantive educational goals have gone by the wayside.

What this piece doesn't address is the difference between real self-esteem and phony, trumped up feel goodism so often passed off as self-esteem. Real self-esteem, of necessity, is the result of a positive action. It's tough to have self-esteem when you're in high school and you still don't know how to read, for example. But self-esteem does occur when students do learn to read. It's a positive act. High self-esteem happens when students do well. Shouldn't it be obvious that poor self-esteem happens when students don't do well? This common sense approach hasn't been taken in gov't schools because it's not politically correct. Sorry if that sounds over simplified, but it's woefully true. And another issue altogether.